Observer: How do you feel about the big move here?
Shipley: I have really enjoyed being able to take it a step at a time. What is so nice about higher education is that it moves at glacial speed. Since there have been five months between the decision to appoint me and taking on the role, [President] David Dunlop and I have participated in quite a few things together. I went to a higher education policy meeting in Charleston. We had two days of talking in the car, getting briefed, getting prepared. I met all the commissioners and other presidents. I came back and participated in an SU board meeting. It is so much easier moving in a step at a time rather than jumping in.
Observer: So you set up shop July 1?
Shipley: [Laughs] Well that is the funny part. SU is air conditioning Popodicon after the Dunlops move out. I will be living in the students’ residence hall for the first four or five weeks. I’m looking forward to that. [My husband] Randy will move up mid-August. I hope to be in before the students arrive. The neat thing is I’ll get to see how the students live.
Observer: Tell me about your family and where you grew up.
Shipley: We grew up in Lubbock, Texas. My dad owned a television station. I met Roy Rogers and Lassie. I have a picture of me in Liberace’s lap. My mom was a professor at Texas Tech. I saw every day a woman getting up and going to a university to work.  She was a math adjunct professor.  My dad got a promotion and moved us to Waco. He didn’t even ask her, those were the days. My mom went back to high school teaching. My dad is gone now. He was a real community leader, he was head of the Lubbock symphony board.  My mother and I are totally different people. She hasn’t seen and done the things I’ve been able to do.  I lived in Europe a lot. I found it hard to navigate between Berlin and Lubbock, Basel, Switzerland and Austin, Texas. You are constantly between different worlds. It’s hard when you are that way, and you go home and nobody gets it.
Observer: You are a stranger in both camps?
Shipley: Yes. That’s what education does, it makes you increasingly uncomfortable. [laughs] That’s what we all aspire to be!
Observer: How do you think people are going to react to you as the new president?
Shipley: People like presidential change until they find out that, oh, this really isn’t Dr. Dunlop. And they start to say ‘I like the way he did this or that,’ and they may not like the way I approach things. But I am very, very dedicated to absorbing the environment, looking at the culture, listening, rather than walking in with a plan and a direction.  But I can’t help being a different person than he is, and I have a different view of things. He and I have different interests, but we have surprisingly similar values.
Observer: Can you give an example of this?
Shipley: A simple one. There is some talk about how the “SU” athletic motto will be represented on the athletic jersey. The background to this is that several professional firms were hired to do thinking about this. Now students have come back with their suggestions. Both of us agreed that it would make sense to take the ideas from the professionals and give these to the students rather than starting over.
Observer: That’s interesting to me. So, you believe that efficiency is important, and you want to involve students in making decisions.
Shipley: Oh sure. That’s why I think a linguist is good in a job like this. You are always between cultures and languages, you have students speaking one language, faculty speaking another, community members another. All have different values, and the challenge is to bring them together and find win/win solutions. I would rather have a lose/ lose than a win/lose, otherwise some group goes away disaffected. Compromise often takes longer, but it is ultimately more efficient than opting for one party winning and the other losing. I read a book that changed how I looked at academic and public administration called Getting to Yes; totally changed my thinking about how I dealt with groups. I was a pretty win/lose person until then, and the winning was supposed to be on my side! If you stick with something long enough, you listen closely enough, and you are creative enough, you can get to a win/win for everyone.
Observer: You are going to be the first female president of the university. Does that seem significant to you, in the light of other recent firsts such as Nancy Pelosi being the first female Speaker of the House and Drew G. Faust being the first female president of Harvard University? These things are milestones.
Shipley: What is more important: The fifteenth president or the first woman? Am I Dr. Shipley or am I Suzanne? Because I am coming from a women’s college, the role of women leadership is very important to me. A lot of my research is about women. I researched women who left Nazi Germany to escape the Holocaust and settled in North and South America. The topic of gender is a topic I’m familiar with. I don’t know that women lead differently than do men. I have had two women presidents, and two male presidents. I don’t know that gender is a defining difference for leading a university.
Observer: I’ve noticed a reluctance in the university board members to talk about this. I would have thought there was a way to acknowledge the significance of your appointment without detracting from your accomplishments. Isn’t there time to pause and celebrate getting through the glass ceiling?
Shipley: What I admired about their not doing that [focusing on my being the first female president] is that they were trying to honor me, and not my gender, and I really, really appreciated that. But like you, I think it is important to be the first. For no other reason, students will see something different and sometimes if you don’t see one like you doing something, you don’t believe you can do it. It is also important for young men to see that as well.
Observer:. What are you worried about? What are you anxious about?
Shipley: I hope that I live up to people’s expectations day to day. I’m great long-term, looking at the big picture. You chide yourself day to day when you are so focused getting something done, achieving something, that when someone pops their head in the door, you are not noticing them, responding to them as a person, or being kind to them. So I have to constantly monitor myself, because I will push forward, to accomplish what is in the best interests of the university, and I don’t want to miss the individual in that experience.
Observer: And you are anxious you may not get that right?
Shipley: I am anxious that with all the clamoring for attention that can occur that you might overlook something or miss an opportunity.
Observer: What can you do?
Shipley: Be aware of it. Ask staff close to me for feedback.
Observer: Traditionally, SU has been about vocational degrees: teaching and nursing. Right now, West Virginia doesn’t have a public liberal arts college. Is that what you would like SU to become known as?
Shipley: Shepherd doesn’t see itself as a liberal arts university. But when you talk to the larger world, they see Shepherd as a public liberal arts university, like a James Madison, a Mary Washington, a Saint Mary’s in Maryland. A public liberal arts university says “Yes you will be able to make a living when you leave here, but within your disciplinary expertise, you will have a very strong arts background.” I firmly believe that no matter what profession our students practice, they will be better at it with an excellent liberal arts education, because they will be making ethical decisions, they will be aware of teamwork, they will be able to integrate knowledge. The question will be, does West Virginia want that kind of distinction for Shepherd?
Observer: Talking to some of the staff here, one of their main issues is that there is a real imbalance in the ratio of professors to adjunct professors, with there not being enough professors. Is that something that concerns you?
Shipley: The way to balance it is to hire more full-time professors, and then it becomes a budget issue. Shepherd has already begun to do this. That is very important to me. This is something I have kept a very close eye on in the work I do.
Observer: Shepherd is hiring five new full time faculty this year. What is a healthy ratio for the faculty?
Shipley: In Maryland, no fewer than 50 percent of your instructors have to be full-time faculty. I do not know what the ratio is at Shepherd. The Maryland figure is the guideline I would come in with.  I believe in gradual change. You won’t see me come in and say “next year we are hiring 20 faculty.” I would be happy with five [new faculty members] a year, because it gives you time to absorb the new faculty, make them part of the community.
Observer: There appears to be a real problem in attracting quality professors to Shepherd and keeping them. A large part of this is the price of living here, especially housing costs, compared to the salary offered. How do you plan to fix this economic dysfunction?
Shipley: I have been working over the past six years in Maryland on salary enhancement for faculty members. When I arrived, assistant professor salaries were at $36,000, this year they are at $44,000. Overall faculty salaries have increased by five to six percent,  full-time professor salaries have increased by 11 percent.
Observer: So salaries are a priority to you?
Shipley: They have been in my immediate past work, and I have great interest in them. You can’t retain focused staff and faculty if you don’t pay good salaries. If you have a good faculty, darn it, you should reward them! It sends a message when your salaries are among the lowest in the region, it says you are not as competitive as other places.
Observer: People in town are very concerned about the issue of parking. Many of them blame the university and its students for the problem. They also say that they don’t feel the university is taking this issue seriously enough. What do you have to say about this?
Shipley: I’m excited about the parking issue. I think it is a teachable moment. You see a growing interest in studying the environment within the student body. If we are able to use the issue to help them study their ecological footprint, maybe they will stop getting into their cars and driving into town, and maybe they will be better citizens when they leave. It will help students learn about place if we help them learn how to respect small town life and the community they have chosen to enter. Sure you can say that the university provides enough parking and we have the shuttle. But obviously we haven’t fixed the problem yet. So the problem is one of education. I have to confess, my husband and I live two blocks from Towson University and have students parking up and down our street. So I understand personally the impact that parking can have at your home. I will be an advocate for the town and [laughing] let’s see how popular that makes me with my colleagues!
Observer: Let me ask about the future. This university seems to be obsessed with growth. More degrees, more students, more departments. The Shepherd University master plan calls for growing the student population from current numbers of 4,000 students and 500 faculty, to over 13,000 students and 1,500 faculty in 25 years. Is that where you want to take the university?
Shipley: That is not my thinking right now. The university has grown beyond its resources and the resources need time to catch up.  I would suggest that three to five percent per year is a healthy amount of growth while I work really hard to attract resources. It’s not about doing more, its about doing what we do better.
Observer: [Shows Dr Shipley master plan from the university’s website, which she had not seen up to this point; it shows that five percent annual growth generates 13,000 students in 25 years]. Do you still think five percent growth a good idea?
Shipley: The difference between three and five percent is very interesting. If you stay at three percent, I think you are growing modestly—in 25 years you would build up to 7,000 students. That doesn’t seem out of the realm of the possible. I would caution that if we are looking at five percent then there would have to be resources and funding to keep up with that.
Observer: You are obviously an ambitious person. You have taken part in university president training programs. You interviewed for presidential positions around the country. How long are you going to be here? Is this a stepping stone to something else?
Shipley: I made a commitment that I will stay no less than seven years. Because of our training, I know it takes that long to make a difference. I’m hoping this is my presidency. Period. I very much admire David Dunlop having been here 11 years. I think 10 years is a good time-frame for a president. You don’t wear out your welcome in that time and you can get a lot done and then you can move on and let someone else step in with a lot of improvements behind you. I’m gong to be 54 in a week or two, so ten years sounds great to me. This is where I want to be president. I’m not looking to be president somewhere else.